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An international panel of air safety experts has concluded that pilots' over-reliance on automation has made their manual flying skills rusty and too-short training time has left them ill-prepared to operate new flying technology. The FAA-sponsored panel is set to release its study soon, but a draft reveals that poor manual flying skills or mistakes using flight computers were to blame in two-thirds of certain types of accidents.

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Ultrasonic tests of the 422 25-foot-long rods that anchor the tower of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in California indicate that one of them is as much as 6 inches shorter than required. Whether it was cut that way or snapped off is unclear, and officials are investigating. It's part of ongoing problems with the anchor rods at the bridge.

Work has been delayed in the construction of a pedestrian bridge in Calgary, Canada. Crews tried to put the steel arch into place, but the connecting beams were about 4- to 5-inches too short. Adjusting the pillars or the connectors under the bridge could solve the problem. The 190-foot-long bridge is the correct length. It's unclear why the pieces didn't fit together.

In an effort to retain its fighter pilots, the Air Force recently announced $225,000 bonuses for pilots willing to make a nine-year commitment. However, federal budget cuts have led to reduced flying hours and pilots are passing up the money for more time in the air. "If you're not flying your F-22 because it's grounded, you might as well go fly something else," said acting Secretary of the Air Force Eric Fanning.

In addition to the threat to air traffic control towers, sequestration would have far-reaching impacts in other areas as well. Maintenance of system infrastructure would be drastically curtailed. Only VORs scheduled to remain in long-term operation as part of the Minimum Operating Network would be repaired in the event of an outage. Other navaids -- and the procedures associated with them -- would remain unavailable after an outage. Flight service and FAA-sponsored DUAT flight planning services would be spared immediate cuts, but remain vulnerable later.

American Airlines' introduction of tablets in the cockpit to replace pilots' heavy paper flight manuals is lauded as a major advancement, but this opinion piece suggests that more could be done. The tablets could provide air traffic workers with tremendous data that are currently unavailable but could prove helpful for safety and efficiency.